"John Dalmas - Yngling 1 - The Yngling" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dalmas John)

did not believe it would be shameful for him, nor did
his blood quicken at the thought.
He simply knew that he was not intended
to have his head lopped off before the clan.
In July, after the hay was cut and
stored, another ting was held. It heard a number of
complaints and disputes. Warnings were given. Feuds
were approved. Fines of cattle, potatoes and grain
were levied, and backs flogged. A hand was cut off.
And from a copper-haired head, runnels of blood dried
on a pole at the ting ground.
12
At the trial of Nils Hammarson, two
witnesses were heard: Ragnar Tannson and Algott
Olofson. They were Nils's friends and ringmates, but
no one would lie to a ting. After their testimony,
the council sat in quiet discussion in its tent for a
time, then emerged and mounted the platform of hewn
timbers. Warriors and freeholders covered the broad
and trampled field. Axel Storn├дve, chief of the
Svear, arose from his carved throne and stood before
the clans in his cloak of white owl skins. His voice
boomed, showing little sign of his sixty years.
"Nils Hammarson angered a warrior," he
said. "But his speech was within bounds, though
barely.
"Nils Hammarson struck a warrior whose
attack on him was without arms and not deadly.
"Nils Hammarson killed a warrior,
though without intention.
"Nils Hammarson is stripped of all
rights but one, beginning with the second new moon
from now. By that time he must be gone from the lands
of the tribes. If he is not gone by the second new
moon, he will be declared a renegade. Notice of this
judgment will be sent to the J├╢tar and the Norskar,
and they will not take him in.
"One right is retained. Nils Hammarson
is in his nineteenth summer and has fulfilled his
sword apprenticeship. Where he goes he will be an
outlander, unprotected by clans or laws. Therefore,
when the ting is over, his hair will be braided and
he will leave the land as a warrior."
The Eagle Clan grumbled at this
leniency, but the ting had ruled. Three days later,
Ulf Vargson, chief of the Wolf Clan, plaited the hair
of the six Wolf
13
sword apprentices who were in their nineteenth
summers and gave them their warrior names. And Nils